Friday Finds: How to Play with Patterns in Small Spaces

It might seem counterintuitive—but if you have a small space, pattern can actually make it come alive and seem bigger, not smaller and cluttered as you might expect. Using patterns in small spaces can offer you a chance to show your personality and take risks. Since it’s a small space, it’s less of an investment in time and materials.

Let’s take a look at how you can play with patterns in small spaces to add pizzazz to your home.

Incorporate wall coverings.

Today’s wall coverings are nothing like the wallpaper from back in the day. New versions are like pieces of art with amazing colors and design. You can use wall coverings with bold patterns on an accent wall to give a small space an artistic feel or unexpected feel of luxury.

Friday Finds: Be Inspired by Color in Your Home Office

With telecommuting on the rise and more Americans working from home, either for their workday schedule or in addition to their office hours, it’s time to take another look at the home office.

Ideally, your home office should be a place where you can settle in, focus on the work at hand, but also have aesthetics that you enjoy. When it comes to home office décor, you have amazing paint options that can add pizzazz and visual interest.

Color of the Month: Frozen Stream | Hirshfield’s 0669

Now that warm weather is finally here, cooler color trends sound delightful to incorporate into your home. The color of the month this June is Hirshfield’s Frozen Stream, a rich slate-blue-green blend. This Hirshfield’s paint is versatile, sophisticated, and soothing. Blues and greens mingle to shape a feeling of calm, quiet retreat.

Hirshfield’s 0669 Frozen Stream

Dennis Anderson painting out a wall of Frozen Stream at Hirshfield’s Design Resource.

Homeowners looking to incorporate this hue can be assured that it has staying power—it’s included in the 2015 color forecast issued from The Color Marketing Group. The colors shown in the in the 2015 color forecast are found in Hirshfield’s Color Is fan deck.

In the coming months, the home décor sector will continue to see a trend of Mother Earth-inspired tones that inspire a sense of peace and serenity. The blues and greens included in the color forecast are good companion tones to rusty reds and mid-tone oranges, as well as with coppers and gold shades.

Color Up Your Curb Appeal

If you want to add some pizzazz to the outside of your home, whether for your own satisfaction or because you’re thinking of selling, consider using color. You can update your home’s exterior to give it a fresh look or to incorporate trends that you enjoy. When it’s done well, adding a pop of color can also increase your home’s curb appeal and help your home stand out in the crowd.

But how do you add color the right way? Here are some tips to get you started on using paint to your home’s best advantage.

Remember the constants. When you decide to change your home’s color, first think about its unchangeable features—brick, stonework, roof—and its era and architectural style. That will help you narrow down options.

Since 2007 Hirshfield’s has offered their customers the luxury of storing and tracking their paint information. All YOU have to do is join Hirshfield’s Color Club.

What’s the Color Club all about?

Personal Archived Color History.We’ll keep track of all your paint color selections, including custom color formulations and stain color formulas. The product you used. The color. The sheen. Even the room. You never need to save another old paint can. You’ll always have a record at Hirshfield’s Decorating Centers. Tomorrow or ten years from now. Just visit any Hirshfield’s location. The color you used is right at our fingertips.

You can spend hours choosing the right sink shape, faucet or mirror when decorating your bathroom. And then it’s time to talk color. Before choosing the color for your bathroom there are a few things to consider.

First, what’s your style? Is the bathroom a place where you quickly get ready for work in the morning and for bed at night? Or is it a sanctuary in your home – where you enjoy a long soak in the tub, relaxing after a busy day?

Designers describe the pale wash of green of Benjamin Moore’s Fresh Dew as the “color of the sea,” and the perfect backdrop to a relaxing bath in a spa-like space.

House Beautiful: The Bathroom

Maybe you want your bathroom to be spotless and sparkle. Benjamin Moore’s Brilliant White will really make your fixtures pop. This is a white that isn’t too bright and isn’t too creamy. It’s a great, classic backdrop for any artwork you might have.

Your bathroom can also be a place to really experiment with color, since it may be a smaller room with some wall space taken up by tile. If you want to really kick things up, try Benjamin Moore’s California Blue or maybe even Tangerine Dream.

Benjamin Moore California Blue

California Blue is a rich, dark blue that’s reminiscent of the blue used in blueprints.

Benjamin Moore Tangerine Dream

Tangerine Dream is definitely not for the faint of heart but can really give you some major wow factor in a small space.

Why not go even bolder? Hirshfield’s Facebook friend Kelly posted that she transformed her 1/2 bath thanks to Benjamin Moore’s rich purple color called Aura Kalamata. Kelly says it’s so rich she thinks it also makes the bathroom look bigger.

No matter which color you choose for your bathroom, remember that it doesn’t have be a utilitarian space. Using color, accessories and artwork, you can really create a space that fits your design personality. What do you think? Log on to our Facebook page and let us know what you thought about this post. We’ll choose one winner at random who will get two gallons of Benjamin Moore paint!

We all have a favorite color, that shade of green or blue or purple that just makes us feel good. But if you’re looking for Tiffany blue or Coca-Cola red for your next project, sometimes there just isn’t that perfect match in the countless options of paint chips available at the paint store.

That’s where color matching comes in handy. Experts can now take just about any item – a piece of jewelry, a blouse, even a pillow or door and copy it in paint. Consider it couture color at no extra cost.

Computers are used to match a color and put the precise amount of colorant in a base to create your perfect can of paint. Kevin at Hirshfield’s Paint Manufacturing says you don’t need to have a large sample of the color you want to copy for the process to work. As long as the computer has a sample the size of a quarter, it can recreate your color.

Computers can have a tough time with a sample that has a rough or textured surface, like a tapestry or pillow. Kevin says that’s when color matching needs to go a little more low-tech.

That process still starts with the computer to get close to the color you’re looking for. Then, it’s up to the employee to decide which colorants to add and how much. This is where Hirshfield’s expertise comes in.

Kevin walked me through the process: first a sample of the paint is brushed out and dried to compare to the sample being matched. This process can be repeated several times until the correct color is created and you’re happy with the match. Ron at the Roseville Hirshfield’s says the “hand to eye” tweaking can be done while you wait but does take some time. It may be best to leave the sample at your neighborhood Hirshfield’s and let the experts work on it to create the best match possible. Then it can go home with you to start your next project.